India, a safe & stable market for brand Diesel: Renzo Rosso

In a special interview with CNBC-TV18's Nayantara Rai, Renzo Rosso, founder of popular brand Diesel spoke about business prospects for the company and its plans for India.Below is the verbatim transcript of the interview.Q: Welcome to India.A: I am very happy to be here, I love this place, I love the people, I love the smile from this beautiful country and the colours.Q: So what brings you here besides the beautiful people and the colours.A: My business, because I am running Diesel and lot of other brands, but Diesel is the most popular and this is a perfect fit for what we are doing especially in the denim for India country.Q: So are you excited by the prospects in India. How has the Indian experience been so far when we talk about your business?A: Well, India is a country that is moving little bit slow compared maybe with China but is a country that is very safe because it is going slow but it’s very stable.Q: So what are you plans if I was to ask you how many stores you want to open, how many would you ideally like to have.A: By now we have 12 stores and every year we improve, we are doing in the region of another 4 stores for the next couple of years and we have to wait for the town growth, the right mall because it’s not a just to open a store, you need to be in the right position, the right mall with the right brand close together because we now in the last two years we spent a lot of money and time for build up because the brand is really alternative to the luxury and we need to be in the right position because our prices are quite high.Q: They are quite high so are they as expensive as if I was to buy a pair of jeans here would it be the same as if I was to get them in Europe or America or because of the tax structure etc it is more expensive here.A: Let’s say you want to compare, you have to pay a little duty so let’s say 5 percent more expensive, so it’s not a so big difference.Q: But do you introduce the line here at the same time that you do in the rest of the world or is it dated?A: Exactly, for me one collection, one time all over the world because people live in Los Angeles, or in Mumbai, in Delhi or London must be on the same time have the same product.Q: And also because the proliferation of the internet, the social media, I guess that has also made it a little difficult to not be everywhere at the same time.A: No, this is great, I think online is very magical. I think it is a very good new way to buy, new helping for the new family, for the people in general that have a different attitude and different way to survive, so it’s fantastic.Q: But carrying on this conversation of the internet and this proliferation. Has it made the runway redundant. Do you still need to have fashion weeks, because you can see anything anytime on the internet?A: You have to say that fashion week is very important because you can show the product and you need a time for it to digest, you need time to produce, you need time to meet your buyers and I think when you work to especially on the high level that’s the way to work. When you are working may be more commercial, more mass you can do see now, buy now.Q: You talk about now and that pre-empted my next question, everything is now about now, do consumers get confused that I am seeing a line now, but it is going to be available only six months from now. Do you see anymore change in that?A: The more difficult is your product, the more ingredient is on your product the more highs your product are, more difficult easily to do see now, buy now. When you have a simple things let’s say the creativity, you have to spend the time and also this time is fantastic because you can desire more otherwise to have everything after when it is arrive in the same moment that you see, you have already lost the desire to wear.Q: You tease the consumers this is what goes to be coming. So as you grow older, how do you ensure that you continue talking to the younger, the younger people that are buying your jeans?A: Already, I have done an operation a few years ago. I bring in Nicola Formichetti onboard, so I passed the testimonial. It is him now the creative director. I think he is doing a very good job. You can see he around the new collection now is really one feel through the shop to the beginning to the end. We are very happy of what the Nicola doing. Also we increase the status of the brand, we cut the low profile, the low distribution and now this has become really super cool like it was a few years ago.Q: Was it difficult to not be so hands on as far as creativity goes. Was it difficult to detach?A: You have to think this is 38 years old and I think necessary that is naturally that a new people, young people come in on board and bring his brand that is already so solid. It is already so great whole over the world for the young generation and I think Nicola is doing very well with the collections first of all. Second now we have also the right advertising for who we want to be, for who we was before in advertising. The new advertise and the last advertising is a really fantastic because we interact with the consumer and now we also have the new concept store that we just opened a few weeks ago in Madison Avenue, New York, so a lot of thing is done.Q: So, when we are going to see in India, the new concept store?A: We hope soon because now we got to refit the first store that we opened in the beginning, and soon I hope at the end of this year or the beginning of next year.Q: The other thing I wanted to ask you was if you look at your contemporaries and your other peers who have created global fashion empires, it could be a Ralph Lauren, Donna Karan, why didn’t you name your label as your name, why did you say Diesel, is there any story behind that?A: When I started with Diesel I was very young, I was very much in love with Levi's. Levi's for me is like  my grandfather. Thanks to Levi's we exists. We were looking for a simple name, short name and Diesel was a magical moment because of the Alternative Energy. It was like we will see and then it was that's the name that we want.Q: So, you started off with perhaps trying to be everyday jeans, cowboy jeans, was that the start?A: I started through that moment but after that I started to see how we can develop this brand. Always in my life I bring in existing things and I put modernity to become more modern. So, from that moment we have been in denim.Diesel opened a new road in the fashion business and the denim business and now everybody is following us. So, I think that is nice because Diesel has been important in changing the concept in mind in 1990s and also in the denim. Today you can use denim on every occasion, you can have black denim, white denim. We just opened a store in  Tokyo and the opening was in a wedding ceremony where people wore denim as their wedding dresses.When we started in 1978 and till now I think the transformation in denim is unbelievable.Q: What is this denim master studio?   A:  When you want personalisation and you want to buy some of our product, you can choose different rivets, you can put your initial, you can put you name. If you are female  you can put additional  colour  or maybe you can embroidery some patches.Q: I want to now talk about Renzo the businessman. So, are you a better businessman or a better designer?A: I am a businessman. I have a crew of designers working, I tell them what people like, what they want for the next season. However special characteristic of myself is to know what is going on commercially, what the market wants, their needs and drive the designer to do it one year before the others.Q: I want to talk about OTB now. We all know about Diesel. How did OTB start, how did you get so many brands under OTB?A: Through Diesel we grew, we became global. Internationally Diesel started with denim but later started with everything watches, shades, children's wear, furniture, lamps and so many things. So, as these grew and we became an important brand, we started to move in and acquire other brands. We have Maison Margiela onboard, we have Marni onboard, Viktor & Rolf, so we have many brands onboard. Besides of our fashion business we are involved in organic food, financing start-up. We are involved in hotel business, wine business.I think my day is fantastic because I can move from interior design, advertising, so many different lines, start-up, organic food. Organic food takes a lot of my time now because I think to eating well and going through this organic mentality  is the next luxury investment that the world is going to do.Q: Where are you growing all these organic  produce?A: Right now the company is in Italy. We have 300 stores in Italy and now we are looking forward to expand our stores to other countries. Organic is something that we really needed to go in that direction.Q: You said you are getting into wine, so  are you buying vineyards? How is that going to work?A: I have a vineyard from 1990. I have bought beautiful 5 hills that was on the way to becoming the next Beverly Hills because the owner was dividing so many properties to setup a beautiful  villa. I bought that property, now it has become a natural park. We have a street that cuts the property, people can walk in the day, we have wild animals and there we have our vineyard. So, we have our wine, our olive oil and we produce also our vegetables. The wines that we are doing is very special. It is only 15000 bottles per year and is sold in 200 best restaurants in the world.Q: You also said you are funding start-ups. So, which are the start-ups that you think you are really betting on, that is going to make you a lot of money?A: One start-up that is becoming today very big which we started in year 2000 was an online store. Now it is becoming the biggest online store for luxury. That was an incredible start-up that I am part of. We now have these young kids in H-Farm that we started. One that is starting to become very well-known is Depop. You can sell on Depop all your wardrobe. You just subscribe and you can sell your wardrobe.Q: If venture capitalists like  you want to invest in start-ups, how much of a return should they look at? Should it be like 30 percent, 50 percent, 100 percent?A: When I invest in start-up I don't think like that. We are happy when start-up don't lose money and when the start-up starts to really grow we sell the start-up because the big industries come in to buy. Normally we keep a start-up for three years. After three years we sell the start-up.Whenever we sell the start-up normally we keep certain percent of the company so that we still make money every single year.Q: In India are you looking to meet any start-ups or do you want to meet any start-ups?A: We are open, if people have good ideas, crazy ideas, fantastic idea coming from young people. Young people have a vision of what they need. If someone has such ideas we are open.Q: How should they get in touch with you?A:  You can write to me to my email, you can contact my H-Farm company.